BTS: Shock Wave

Hi all! We’re back like we’ve never left. JUST KIDDING! We know it’s been quite some time since either of us have shared a BTS blog (or really any kind of blog) since the death of the Weekend Club (RIP!) but we’ve been having all these thoughts and nowhere to put them. Aaand that’s why we’ve decided to start blogging regularly again. No particular schedule though so don’t be pressed if we’re not writing weekly (lol!) but just know we’ll be sprinkling some knowledge, tips, behind-the-scenes, and new work here and there moving forward. So let’s dive in shall we?

We love working with Adobe in any capacity because it always brings us such cool opportunities like the one I’ll be talking about today. Our friend Andrew, whom you might know online (and on Adobe Live) as Hoch.Co, approached us for this assignment back in March and asked if we could come up with a series of images in the theme of “making waves” for Adobe’s newest quarterly zine called Half Page. The first issue was specifically going to feature all female creatives in support of Women’s History Month and we were elated about the chance to get to contribute alongside such talented women.

Our images were going to be accompanied by an interview/conversation featuring us, our business, burning out/bouncing back, and the challenges that our industry faced during the pandemic. During our interview, we spoke with Andrew about everything that was going on in our industry in 2020 and how that impacted our business. From that conversation, we came to the conclusion that the pandemic quite literally shook everything in the photography industry leaving people to pick up the pieces and figure out how they were going to pivot. This gave us the idea of a shock wave and we absolutely ran with it. Below are a few images of the actual zine and our spread. :)

To get into the backstory of the imagery a little bit more, Elle and I went hard at work trying to figure out how to best convey this “shock wave.” We knew we needed some really strong visual elements so we leaned into this very powerful and commanding red thanks to our amazing backdrop from Cosita Vinyl (save 15% with this affiliate link!). We also wanted to play with the idea of actually breaking glass for two reasons. One, as a nod to “women breaking the glass ceiling,” and two, as a visual and literal representation of what happens after a shockwave. A. Whole. Mess. You know? Plus, leaving the one flower in its vase untouched felt like the appropriate visual symbol for overcoming adversity despite the craziness that was the panini (aka the pandemic, haha!)

Elle managed to score all of these gorgeous and thick vintage glassware at the thrift store that worked perfectly to elevate all of our red vegetables. The shoot itself was so much fun even if it was kind of messy (and TBH a little dangerous haha) but we loved every second of creating these images. I also had a blast retouching it all later in Lightroom Classic and Photoshop. I definitely made sure to saturate the reds and give it the appropriate grit and texture to seal it all together. Check out the mockup Elle created with Adobe Firefly below as well as some BTS and final images!

Final Images

Is it the weekend yet?

Arabela